Design and construction of the motion mechanism of an XY micro-stage for precision positioning

•A motion mechanism of XY micro-stage with a millimeter travel range was designed.•The developed motion mechanism has a compact apparatus of 24mm×24mm×5mm.•A millimeter travel range with a 10nm positioning resolution was achieved.•Developed motion mechanism was confirmed to achieve velocity of more than 5mm/s. A motion mechanism of an XY micro-stage is designed and constructed for precision positioning of light weight objects. A driving unit, which consists of two PZTs and a friction component made by permanent magnet, is mounted on the center of the stage base for driving the stage moving plate made by steel in the X- and Y-directions based on a friction drive. The moving plate is attached on the friction component by the magnetic force. Leaf springs are employed to guide the X- and Y-directional motions of the moving plate over a range of ±1mm in both directions. The stage motion mechanism, which dominates the overall size of XY micro-stage, has a compact size of 24mm (X)×24mm (Y)×5mm (Z). The basic performances of the stage motion mechanism have been investigated by experiments.